The Secretary General, who is retiring after 10 years in charge of the UN, spoke of his sadness at being unable to prevent President Bush and Tony Blair invading Iraq without UN backing.

He said he had done 'everything I could' to stop the war taking place and genuinely believed it could have been halted.

This afternoon White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush had reluctantly accepted Mr Bolton's decision to leave the UN post in a matter of days, when the current session of the US Congress ends.

"Despite the support of a strong bipartisan majority of senators, Ambassador Bolton's confirmation was blocked by a Democrat filibuster,

and this is a clear example of the breakdown in the Senate confirmation process," Ms Perino said.

Mr Bolton was widely seen as the latest casualty of President Bush's disastrous mid-term election performance last month, when the Democrats seized control of US Congress. Democrats had warned that they would not confirm Mr Bolton's appointment.

His nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans who object to his confrontational approach.

President Bush gave Mr Bolton the UN job temporarily in August last year while Congress was in recess.

Mr Bolton has long been controversial and is accused of trying to ensure that the State

Department backed claims that Saddam Hussein

had weapons of mass destruction. His appointment to the UN caused a row because he had long criticised the organisation.

In a BBC interview, Mr Annan said that the level of violence in Iraq was 'much worse' than in

civil wars fought in Lebanon and other places.

Asked if Iraqis were worse off, he replied: "I think they are ... in the sense of the average Iraqi's life. If I were an average Iraqi obviously I would make the same comparison.

"They had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets. They could go out, their kids could

go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, 'Am I going to see my child

again?'"

His comments came ahead of this week's Baker report which is expected to urge a quicker phased

withdrawal by US troops and to engage with 'axis of evil' states Iran and Syria.

Mr Blair is planning to use the report to press Mr Bush to launch a fresh bid for peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Iraq's president has rejected calls for an international conference on how to halt the violence wracking his country.

"We are an independent and a sovereign nation and it is we who decide the fate of the nation," said Jalal Talabani.